Nowadays, a lot of information, such as fax (facsimile), voice and data, is transmitted from an originating site to a destination site through the PSTN (public switched telephone network) as shown in FIG. 1. The connection between the originating site and the destination site is formed by setting up a dial-up line and then sending the analog information. However, the cost of such direct dialing lessens the revenues of business companies. Information can be transmitted at a very low cost through the Internet. Currently, many business and telecommunication service providers use the Internet as medium to have their information transmitted as shown in FIG. 1. In the case that a company has information gateways in two countries, an originating information gateway 2, for example, in Taipei, Taiwan and a destination information gateway 5, for example, in Los Angeles, USA, when a company's staff member, for example, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan wants to send a fax to a destination information device 6 in New York, USA, he has to send the fax from a originating information device 1 to the originating information gateway 2 first, and the originating information gateway 2 converts the fax into a computer readable stream or file data and then transmits the converted fax data to the destination information gateway 5 in Los Angeles through Internet 4. The destination information gateway 5, after receiving the fax data, converts the received fax data back into the original fax, which forms a dial-up line with the destination information device 6 through the PSTN, and sends the original fax to the destination information device 6 through the PSTN. In this way, the person who sends a fax from Taiwan to USA will be charged only for a local or long distance call in addition to any charge to international telecommunication services.
Even so, there still exist some major problems in the above-mentioned conventional information transmission system. First, even if the telecommunication service providers or companies may establish information gateways as many as possible for transmitting information via the Internet so as to reduce the cost of the international telecommunication services, it is still possible that users will be charged for long distance calls if these gateways are not established as many as enough in both the originating and destination countries. For example, in case the service provider only establishes an originating information gateway in Taipei, Taiwan and a destination information gateway in Los Angeles, USA a user in Taipei sends a fax to Los Angeles, the actual telecom cost will be only two local-loop-call charges, which are sending the fax from Taipei, Taiwan to the originating information gateway in Taipei and then sending the fax from the destination information gateway in Los Angeles to the destination fax device in Los Angeles. But in case a user in Kaohsiung, Taiwan wants to send a fax to New York, USA, the actual telecom cost will be two long-distance-call charges from Kaohsiung to Taipei and from Los Angeles to New York.
It is very difficult and costly for any companies and service providers to have information gateways across in the country. Also, it is infeasible to have information gateways in all other countries.
Furthermore, even if users can reduce the transmission cost by the use of the Internet technology as mentioned above, the reduced cost is limited. For this reason, telecommunication service providers and companies still need to establish a line between the destination information gateway and the destination information device through the PSTN. In general, the volume of information can be processed concurrently largely depends upon the number of the telephone lines physically built. The more telephone lines are built, the more the information can be processed concurrently.
Furthermore, in recent years, more and more computers are connected with the most well known computer network, the Internet, by various types of technologies such as leased line, ISDN, cable modem, xDSL, etc. Most of the computers are only “dynamically” connected to the Internet. For example, when a computer user wants to check e-mail or browse some web sites from the Internet, he/she turns on his/her computer and connects to the Internet by some software programs, such as dial-up programs. Once the computer is connected to the Internet, the computer user can check his/her e-mails or browse some web sites. The computer user can disconnect his/her computer from the Internet once he/she finishes the job and turn-off his/her computer.
Some of the above-mentioned computers “dynamically” connected to the Internet have fax modems and available phone lines for performing dial-up request, sending fax or voice etc., and may exist everywhere in the world. Such computers can be used as transmission client nodes (TCNs) of the present invention and will be introduced in detail later.